Thursday, May 9, 2013

Very close to the debate of
‘ecotourism’ in wildlife sanctuaries, it is the mist around ‘Eco-Tourist Carrying
Capacity’. The parameters to be considered are different for estimation of the
‘tourist carrying capacity’ for sanctuaries on land vs. sanctuaries on river.
Wildlife practitioners need to realize that ‘guidelines’ are very broad-based
and cannot address individual cases. If the manager tries to lift the
guideline/method from a Tiger Reserve for use in river habitat meant for
offering a ‘sanctuary’ for basking crocodiles and turtles, there is bound to be
problem.

For estimation of tourist
carrying capacity one guideline from Project Tiger headquarters has been in
circulation in different contexts since early 2000s. I have not come across any
other written down document in this regard. For more than one reasons I was,
however, not comfortable with the method either during my tenure in Similipal
Tiger Reserve, or on other occasions when there was a discussion on maintaining
healthy trend of tourist inflow. At Similipal, my judgment and intuition kept
me stuck for suggesting some of the traditional and workable methods that
revolved round aspects like (a) the profile of vehicle used by the visitor, (b)
diurnal-timings for tourist-visit, (c) the tourism route, (d) the tourism
season, and (e) the numbers of vehicles that may enter on any particular day.
The numbers are liable to change on dates like X-mass and New Year. While
implementing all these considerations in the field, it involved very rigorous
VHF-based tourism monitoring at the personal level by a set of committed
higher-level officials from 6AM to 6PM. This was on normal days, when there
were no cases like vehicle breakdown or someone from the group missing in the
hills. On unusual days, the staffs keep
moving around the reserve the entire night and the supporting wireless stations
remain alert all along. Although the
staffs were under pressure due to tourism, regulatory approaches worked well,
but we couldn’t write down a fixed code of conduct on ‘tourist carrying
capacity’. In sanctuary management
every day was a learning experience. In tourism management the realization was
more so.

The extent of disturbance due to
tourism is many-fold and highly damaging in river sanctuary than in a land
sanctuary. The outline shape of a land sanctuary is tried to be kept extended
to all sides; i.e., in order to make the habitat more sustainable the land
sanctuaries are usually not strip-like. Here the wildlife remains distributed
over the spread-out habitat. While traveling by jeep the impact of tourism cut
through the habitat along certain ‘tourism’ routes. Unless one gets down to
leave merry-making ‘tourist-foot-prints’, and unless the vehicle is very noisy,
in a forest like Similipal, if the jeep makes a journey of 100km with animal
visibility over a width of 20meters, then the immediate crude impact is over
about 2sq.km.

On the other hand, the shape of a
river sanctuary is strip-like. Its water width is further reduced because of
sand deposits. The animals protected in a river sanctuary are crocodiles,
gharial, turtle, dolphin, otter and other wetland fauna. The reptiles have to
come out for basking at water-edge. During the winter season basking is for
very long periods during the entire day. In summer, crocodiles come out for
night time thermal regulation.

Reduced width of water width
means increased disturbance to crocodiles and turtles by navigating boats. While
sailing along the river course the tourists tend to disturb the entire visible
width of the river habitat and the entire animal population that come out for
basking at water edge. Therefore, one cannot think of allowing a fleet of
tourist boats one after the other, whatever may be the time gap. Instead, I
would suggest the followings:

1. A tourist is not a researcher,
but he would like to see gharial and turtle, and also undertake a boat journey.
An ‘ecotourist’ may, however, take pride in walking on the banks for observing
basking gharials and turtles. Considering these aspects, first of all select a
stretch of navigable river the two ends of which can be approached by road.
This stretch of river intended for opening to tourists shouldn’t have nesting
sites or crocodile/gharial nursery sites. It should have sites used by
basking/feeding animals.

2. The tourists are to be taken
from camp to the boat-start point in the upstream. From our survey experiences,
two boats in the morning and two in the afternoon would constitute a manageable
number. It is recommended that the two boats move at a time, allowing no time
gap for repeating disturbance to the basking animals. The boats will not be engine-propelled.
These should row downstream, keeping to the middle of water course. At the end
of the trip the tourists will be brought back to camp by road. There should be
no boat-based tourism in the rains or during rising river. Therefore, the boat
can return to the starting point either during the mid-day or early evening
using a low-noise 10-15HP outboard engine.

Today’s page is a continuation to
what I said in my blog on 24 Feb 2011
about ecotourism without conflict in wildlife conservation.

I had the opportunity of working
in two river sanctuaries--, the Satkoshia Gorge Sanctuary (SKGS) trans-Mahanadi
in Odisha during 1975-1981 and the 1990s; and in the National Chambal Gharial
Sanctuary (NCS) during 1978, 1982-1985. NCS is along the interstate border of
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Both the river sanctuaries are
essentially sanctuaries for gharial (Gavialis
gangeticus) but a variety of other wetland fauna abound in these two
sanctuaries.

SKGS has river Mahanadi
flowing in the west-east direction. The river cuts the forest into northern and
southern portions. After about 30 years’ identity as a gharial/crocodile
sanctuary its new identity is as a Tiger Reserve. Tourists coming to SKGS have
the range of attractions in the forests as well as along the river. River part
of tourism is more sensitive from conservation view point when compared to the
forest part. It is because the river is narrow, just 100metres (300 ft) to
230metres (700 ft) wide.

NCS is strictly a river
sanctuary. It is over 470km long river Chambal. It does not have any comparable
forest on its banks, and as such the sanctuary limits are within a km of water
edge to accommodate protection measures to gharial entering tributaries and
nallahs during the high flood.

Tourism growth and behaviour are such that very soon most
recommendations made in good sense may tend to fall short of ‘conservation
ethics’. First, it is because all our visitors are not strict ‘ecotourists’.
Second, tourism brings with it several other developments of the society which
again may not be conservation-friendly. Moreover,
‘carrying capacity’ is a concept to be thought about when we intend for ‘sustainable
versus full harvest/utilization of resource for a purpose’. In wildlife
sanctuaries ‘full utilization of infrastructure or resource for tourism’ is a
remote mandate, unthinkable. Hence, in stead of ‘carrying capacity’ it is
recommended to have a set of guidelines for regulating tourism without much
disturbing the wildlife. That will perhaps be sustainable for both wildlife
conservation and tourism industry.